Wigan desperately need points from their meeting with West Brom on Saturday as the games run out in their Premier League survival bid.
Roberto Martinez's side occupy the final relegation spot and trail 17th-placed Newcastle by five points, albeit with a game in hand.
Their clash with West Brom at the Hawthorns is followed by a game against Swansea on Tuesday and the two fixtures will doubtless go a long way to deciding the club's fate.
Wigan have not won a league game since their 1-0 home victory over Norwich at the end of March and missed out on ending that run by conceding in the 89th minute to draw with Tottenham last time out.
Martinez's men are famed for their habit of escaping from the drop zone in the latter stages of the season and won seven of their final nine fixtures to stay up in 2011-12.
But they will need a similar run of good form to pull away this time around, starting against Steve Clarke's side.
West Brom posted a 3-0 win over Southampton at St Mary's in their previous game and remain strong favourites to seal eighth place after a season which has defied expectations.
They have already surpassed their best Premier League points haul having accrued 48 and Gareth McAuley has praised his manager's role in that run.
"You look at his CV and see where he has worked in the past and it makes sense," he said. "He’s been in and around top clubs playing European football for a long time. There's a great wealth of knowledge there.
"He's intelligent and he studies football. He's very astute in terms of our preparation and we could tell from day one he was going to be good."
West Brom won the reverse fixture at the DW Stadium 2-1 back in November.
